62 Notes and Sketches. 



and a considerable trade in droving cattle from 

 Galloway and other parts of Scotland to England 

 seems to have sprung up. Sir George Campbell of 

 Cessnock, in Ayrshire, had also a park " furnished 

 with ' ane great brood of cattle' and a superior brood 

 of horses, both from Ireland," and he, too, asks 

 permission to import from the Green Isle. 



The Union between England and Scotland, which 

 took place in 1707, gave a stimulus to various 

 branches of manufactures and trade, and among 

 other things to the trade in cattle, which then began 

 to be sent southward in greater numbers and from 

 further distances off than before ; the profits derived 

 leading certain gentlemen, members of families who 

 considered commerce in any shape rather below them, 

 to become cattle-dealers. Amongst these was the 

 Hon. Patrick Ogilvie, brother of Lord Seafield. 

 Seafield, as Chancellor of Scotland, had taken an active 

 part in bringing about the Union, a measure very 

 unpopular at the' time north of the Border. And 

 accordingly, on the Chancellor remonstrating with 

 his brother, on his undignified business of cattle 

 dealer, the latter drily replied, "Better sell nowte 

 than sell nations." 



In a sketch given of a great cattle fair at Crieff, 

 in 1723, it is said there were at least 30,000 cattle 

 sold there, most of them to English drovers, who paid 

 down above 30,000 guineas in ready money to the 

 Highlanders; " a sum they had never seen before." 

 The Highlanders, it is added, " hired themselves out 

 for a shilling a day, to drive the cattle to England, 

 and to return home at their own charges." The con- 

 nection of the Highlanders with the cattle business 

 was not always quite so accommodating or creditable 

 as this. Yet it is somewhat curious to find that the 

 famous Rob Roy Macgregor, cattle lifter and outlaw, 

 began his career as a legitimate cattle dealer, buying 

 cattle in this very Crieff market and other fairs, and 



